ILO urges SEA nations to improve workers’ lives

MANILA, Philippines – The International Labor Organization (ILO) has urged governments in Southeast Asia to intensify efforts to improve the lives of informal workers in the region.

Yoshiteru Uramoto, assistant director-general of the ILO-Asia Pacific, called on Southeast Asian nations to increase social protection mechanisms for workers in the informal sector.

He said 70 percent of workers in the region are in the informal economy, but workers in this sector do not receive sufficient social protection and benefits.

The National Statistics Office’s 2013 Labor Force Survey results show that Filipino workers in the informal economy reached 16.088 million, or 42.53 percent of the country’s working population of 37.819 million workers.

“The informal sector issue is very difficult. How are we going to formalize informality? [The informal workers] can benefit if we formalize them. If they are registered, the government can assist them,” Uramoto said at the recently concluded World Economic Forum (WEF) on East Asia in Manila.

Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman, who was among the speakers in the WEF’s forum on equitable employment, said that the Philippine government has been working to provide assistance to workers in the informal sector.

“We have social protection system to formalize the informal sector. As we register them, find them where they are, we build their capacity to even manage whatever it is they are engaged in,” she said.

Takeshi Niinami, co-chair of the 2014 WEF on East Asia, noted that skill training for workers in the informal sector is very vital.

However, Uramoto said the economic integration of Southeast Asian member-nations next year could aggravate “inequality” in employment.

He noted that the agreement on labor mobility by ASEAN member-nations covers only skilled workers.

“If the companies want to be competitive they want skilled workers. There will be a high demand for skilled jobs among ASEAN member-countries that means there will be a shortage of skilled workers,” Uramoto warned.

“I think there are a lot of things to be done in the ASEAN integration. What have been agreed only are eight professions, such as doctors, accountants, engineers, [which comprise] less than one percent of the work force in the ASEAN. –Helen Flores (The Philippine Star)